British novelist Roald Dahl, pictured here in 1971, made multiple anti-Semitic comments in the decade before his death in 1990. (Ronald Dumont/Daily Express/Getty Images)
(JTA) — A show by a Jewish playwright interrogating the antisemitism of acclaimed children’s book author Roald Dahl took home three prizes at the Olivier Awards on Sunday.
At the prestigious London theater awards ceremony on Saturday, “Giant” earned the prize for best new play, and its star John Lithgow won the award for best actor. Lithgow’s co-star, Jewish actor Elliot Levey, won best actor in a supporting role.
Written by Mark Rosenblatt, “Giant” portrays a fictional lunch with Dahl and two Jewish publishers as they embark on a conversation pleading with the late author to issue an apology for a 1983 essay in which he suggested that Jews had turned into Nazis.
In the essay, a review of a photobook about Israel’s war in Lebanon, Dahl wrote, “Never before in the history of man has a race of people switched so rapidly from being much-pitied victims to barbarous murderers. Never before has a race of people generated so much sympathy around the world and then, in the space of a lifetime, succeeded in turning that sympathy into hatred and revulsion.”
Dahl added, “The authentic tales of horror and bestiality throughout this book make one wonder in the end what sort of people these Israelis are. It is like the good old Hitler and Himmler times all over again.”
The author of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Matilda” and many other children’s classics made several antisemitic statements throughout his life. He identified as antisemitic shortly before he died in 1990.
The year he wrote the essay, Dahl also said, “There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean, there’s always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.”
The impetus for the play came from Rosenblatt’s reaction to present-day rhetoric around Israel. He told The Guardian he had become “alarmed, as a British Jew, by how openly antisemitic language and stereotyping was blurring with meaningful, constructive debate around Israel and Palestine.”
The play, he said, provided a platform for that conversation to play out. Rosenblatt chose Dahl as the subject because of people’s “affectionate relationship” with him, he told The Times.
A revival of another Jewish play, “Fiddler on the Roof,” directed by Jewish director Jordan Fein, also took home three Olivier Awards including best musical revival, best set design, and best sound design.
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